tearing fear apart
by Coral Acacia
Summary: The future is better than either of them could have predicted. (A few more stolen moments between Kaz and Inej, post-CK.)


_With each word your tenderness grows,_

 _Tearin' my fear apart_

 _And that laugh…wrinkles your nose_

 _Touches my foolish heart…_

\- Frank Sinatra, _"The Way You Look Tonight"_

* * *

Kaz Brekker is a tale of cruelty. Some, he has committed, and some he has borne. It is there in the scar along his ring finger, in the way his hands shake as he brushes against another person, in the way he beats back his emotions and does what he has to, what he needs to, what he wants to.

There are days when Kaz thinks that this cruelty is all he will ever amount to.

And then there are days like today, beautiful and rose gold. Days when Inej returns from the sea and tucks her arm into the crook of his and walks him to the University District, where they eat toasted waffles and sit on a park bench and talk things over as though they have all the time in the world.

He does not understand it, how she still believes him to be so worthy of salvation after all these years, and he is sure to tell her as much.

She smiles and pushes his hair gently back from his forehead. "You," she says, "are one of the best men I have ever met, Kaz Brekker."

He shakes his head. "Just last week, I sent one of my men into a trap I knew would get him killed." He isn't quite sure why he insists on telling her these things. Perhaps because he thinks she should know what kind of cruelties Kaz Brekker is capable of. But perhaps it is also because he wants her to absolve him.

And oh, she always tries to. "He was double-crossing you, wasn't he?" she surmises. The wind rustles the trees of the park around them, catching in her hair and pulling the inky strands into her warm eyes.

He quells the quaking in his gut and tucks her hair behind her ear. "Yes," he admits, "scraping money off the top of our revenue and taking more than his share, but that's not -"

"It is. You always have your reasons, Kaz. I have complete faith that they will continue to be sturdy ones."

Kaz breathes deep, letting her grace wash over him. The sun shines golden above, a rare bright day for Ketterdam. The flowers lining the edges of the park are in full bloom, spring well under way, and he wonders how they possibly ended up here, hands intertwined between them and beauty rearing its head around them and years and years passed since they were forced to confront their fears, their city, each other.

They walk further. His leg is good today, his cane clicking against the ground evenly. "You should come to sea with me," Inej says as they stand at Fifth Harbor and look out at her ship as it undulates with the ever changing tides.

Kaz looks at her. "The last time we were on a ship together," he says, "you asked me to get rid of my armor for you. I still haven't - I haven't quite managed that. Are you sure we should be on a ship together again?"

Inej smiles radiantly. "I hadn't taken you for the superstitious type, Kaz," she murmurs. Then her eyes sober a touch, and she says, "I know you're trying. That's enough." She breathes deep. "That's enough for me."

He twines his fingers tighter with hers and prays that it is. In the months she was away he has been practicing: shaking hands with Jesper, ruffling Wylan's hair. And he wants, more than anything, for it to be enough. He wants for it to be more than enough.

Healing takes time, and time, and more time, though, and there are days when he believes that healing is nothing but a myth. But there are better days, too. There are days like today.

Kaz Brekker knows that he is a tale of cruelty, through and through. But as he looks at Inej, he finds hope that maybe, somehow, his might be a tale of redemption, too.

* * *

She finds herself returning to Ketterdam more often. The hunt for slavers is beginning to weigh on her, after all these years, and she fears who she might become if she chooses to mire in this revenge for the rest of her life.

Early one dark fall morning, when the stars are still glittering in the sky above her, she docks her ship and weaves her way through those familiar streets, smiling as she sees the places where the pleasure houses used to stand. Now, they are owned by traders from foreign countries who have come to Ketterdam to sell their inanimate wares, lured to their posts by the Bastard of the Barrel himself.

Her heart warms at the thought.

Kaz Brekker is in his office, as he always is, scribbling away at one ledger or another. "It seems like you never leave," she says softly, laughing as he looks up at her with faint surprise buried deep in his bitter coffee eyes. "Surprised?" she asks, a smile working its way onto her face.

"Of course not," Kaz replies gruffly, turning back to his papers. "What business? I - We hadn't thought you would be back so soon."

Inej sighs, settling into her usual armchair and watching the way the light of the fire dances across his face, rendering him darkly beautiful. "I love the sea," she begins, "but this hunt for justice, for revenge, is taking me down paths I'm not sure I'd like to follow."

He looks up from his papers, eyes inscrutable. "You're coming back to Ketterdam?"

She sighs. "I don't know what I'm going to do."

Silence rises up between them. He toys with his pen, and she watches the flames in the hearth, and then he says, "I bought a farm."

Startled, Inej looks over. "What for?" she asks.

"It was my father's. I just… I wanted somewhere to go, when this all became too much." His cheeks color slightly at the admission, and she stands and walks over to him, leaning over the desk to place her hand against his.

He stills at her touch.

"Kaz," she says quietly, "is it too much?"

His fingers grasp at hers, now, and he says, voice low and strained, "Every day I feel dirtier. I can't imagine doing anything else, but some nights I feel like I'm drowning all over again -"

"Then let's go. Just for a little while."

His bitter eyes are disbelieving. "Inej," he says, "I have things to take care of."

"Let Nina take care of them. She's been clamoring for something to do."

"And my shares?"

"Wylan will keep track of them, and Jesper will hunt down anyone who dares try to double-cross you. Kaz," she says, "it's okay to need to step back sometimes."

He smiles, just a twitch of his lips. "I don't know how I get anything done when you aren't here," he says.

She presses her lips to his cheek, and it is warmth and sunlight and years and years of waiting. "I don't, either."

* * *

He bought the farm without even glancing over the land, and so the first time Kaz returns to the place he was born, Inej's hand is in his and a trunk of their things is waiting behind them.

He is glad for it, because he is shaking so hard he would have fallen if not for her.

"Show me around?" she asks gently, and he does: he takes her from the bedroom he grew up in to the kitchen where he spent so many mornings with Jordie to the field where his father died, and she holds his hand the whole time, and her eyes are comfort every step of the way.

They unpack slowly: a chair here, a table there. They make the bed in the master bedroom together. His hands fumble at the sheets, and she bites her lip once the work is done, and he says, "We don't have to share, Inej."

She responds by tugging at his lapels and kissing him gently on the forehead and saying, "I want to, Kaz." And he believes her. He trembles at her touch, but the waters are naught but a light spring rain, these days. He has never felt so whole, so forgiven, so forgivable.

The first months pass, things moving in fits and starts as they flit back and forth between Ketterdam and the farm. They make business acquaintances in the small town, Kaz Brekker's reputation preceding him even out here in the farmlands of Kerch, and they grow fields and fields of crops.

Early one morning, he rests his chin on Inej's shoulder and looks out their front window over their fields, their creations. The mist rises gray over the purple lavender, the flowers he planted just for her stretching on for as far as the eye can see.

"I don't deserve this," he murmurs in her ear, disbelieving of the life they have somehow managed to build for each other. "I don't deserve any of this."

She turns to wrap her arms tenderly around his neck. They are learning. Slowly, slowly, surely. She looks him in the eye and says, "You do. You do, and I will believe that until the day I die. You are deserving of good things, Kaz Brekker, despite whatever bad you may have done."

The concept is a foreign one to him.

"My Saints," she says, "they grant grace." He scoffs, and she says, "You can scoff. But I would not be who I am without grace, Kaz. None of us would be."

He smiles a little, just barely, and brushes a thumb against her cheekbone. "I love you," he says softly, all in a rush. "I think I have for quite some time."

He knows he has. He has loved her for years, now; he has respected her and valued her for even longer. His life is so intertwined with hers that it scares him when he considers, in the dead of night, all of the ways he would die for her.

Inej is quiet, eyes searching. She breathes deep.

He wonders if perhaps he said the wrong thing.

And then she kisses him. It is soft and trembling and too short and too long, teeth and lips and firsts for the both of them, and they each step away from it shaking and wanting more. His heart races in his chest. From the anxiety. From the fear. From the _desire_. "I love you, too," she answers him, voice so quiet he has to strain to hear her.

This, he thinks as he watches her smile up at him, is what he meant when he said he wanted _more than enough_. This is what he meant when he said he wanted redemption.

Kaz Brekker is no longer just a tale of cruelty. He can see it in her eyes, feel it in the steady beating of his heart.

"Can I make you waffles?" he asks, once he's caught his breath.

She takes his hand. "I can't imagine anything better."

* * *

 **A/N:** Yes, I'm back with more sickeningly sweet fluff. This can be read as a companion piece to my previous Six of Crows story "Take My Hand", or you can just take it as it is. Whichever you prefer :) In any case, hope you all enjoyed this little piece! Reviews are always appreciated, and if you'd like to come scream with me about Six of Crows and my murder babies on tumblr, you can find me there as softlykaz. Thanks for reading!


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